Denied test, wife of dead COVID-19 patient walks out of Maharashtra hospital

Authorities at the government hospital in Maharashtra's Dhule, where a man had died due to COVID-19 on May 26, did not even collect the swab samples to conduct the test of the deceased's wife, following which she decided to walk back home towards her village.

Dhule (Maharashtra):In a shocking incident, a woman from Maharashtra's Dhule district walked 70 kilometres towards her village after the hospital where her husband died due to COVID-19, left her unattended without conducting her test.

According to reports, the woman, hailing from Bhatpura village in Shirpur taluka, was sent to the Dhule government hospital along with the her husband, who tested positive for COVID-19, on May 22.

On the morning of May 25, her husband died due to coronavirus, but his dead body kept lying at the hospital for an entire day.

The hospital administration reportedly told the woman that her husband's funeral could not take place due to the lack of staff.

Finally, it was the Shirpur tehsildar who conducted the man's final rites with the help of a few individuals.

The helpless woman, had been sitting at the hospital for five days. To make matters worse, her swab samples were not even collected by the hospital to conduct a COVID-19 test, even though her own husband had died due to the illness.

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Fed up by the authorities' apathetic attitude, and worrying about her own health, the woman decided to walk back from the hospital on the morning of May 26.

The woman managed to cover 70 kilometres on foot, and was finally spotted by her relatives near a spinning mill on the Shirpur-Chopda road in the evening. She was then admitted to the Shingave COVID centre.

Meanwhile, the villagers have demanded an FIR against the authorities responsible for the woman's plight.

Pertinently, this is not the first such incident in Dhule, as in a similar incident, a couple from Arthe returned from the Dhule hospital without getting checked.

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